The specific aims of this project are to investigate empirically the determinants of (1) alcohol use by youths between the ages of 12 and 24 and (2) motor vehicle accident mortality rates of youths between the ages of 15 and 24. The research will emphasize the effects of price variations due to variations in alcohol excise tax rates among states of the United States and the effects of state government laws and regulations on youth alcohol use and motor vehicle mortality. Other determinants based on the characteristics of youths, their parents, and the states in which they reside also will be examined. The legal and regulatory variables pertain to the distribution and sale of alcohol and to the operation of a motor vehicle while intoxicated. Examples are the legal drinking age, the number and types of retail outlets that are allowed to sell alcohol, and the permissibility of billboard alcohol advertising. The effects of measures pertaining to the enforcement of the various laws and regulations at issue and to penalties for violating them also will be studied. These measures include, but are not limited to, arrest rates for driving while intoxicated and for liquor law violations, state highway police expenditures or personnel per highway mile, and penalties for drunken driving and for selling alcohol to persons under the legal drinking age. Cycles I and II of the U.S. Health and Nutrition Examination Survery will be used to study the determinants of youth alcohol use in the period from 1971 through 1980. A time series of cross sections consisting of the 50 states of the United States and the District of Columbia for the years 1970 through 1981 will be used to study the determinants of youth motor vehicle mortality rates. The specific aims of the research will be achieved by estimating demand functions for alcohol use by youths and multivariate motor vehicle mortality rate equations.